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A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

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georgerace

Joined: 25 Oct 2006
Posts: 788
Location: Albion, MI

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:08 pm Post subject: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

Hello to all:

First, I am OK, a bit stiff and achy here and there but no cuts or broken

bones. 



Let me first say that I am a 100 hour pilot. My training was done in a LSA

with emphasis on short and soft field landings and takeoffs. You see my

instructor knew what I was going to be flying, and was a 200 hour or better

701 pilot. He really prepared me for my first flight and gave me the

confidence that I would not have any problem flying it based on my flying

skills.



As far as what happened, it all happened so fast it is really hard to recall

how it started to go wrong. I had been to a grass strip fly in earlier in

the day. Left there and went about 25 miles to another grass strip to see

how a friend was doing on his 701 build. Came back to my home area and

decided to do a few short/soft field landings on a 1700 foot grass strip

about a mile from my home strip. (home strip is 550 feet grass) I did at

least 8 steep approach short field landings, all very comfortable and was

going to head for home. I though one more would be fun, as I was enjoying

the touch and go on the "long" grass strip.



Everything looked good and then at the last second the airplane seemed to

balloon up and nose over. I heard the crunch of the front gear assembly,

saw the prop break into pieces and the engine quit. Was sliding down the

grass nose low and then all of a sudden, it seemed like it was in slow

motion, the airplane turned over on it's back. There I was hanging from the

seat belt upside down. I actually remembered to turn off the fuel valve and

the master switches, then opened the door and released my belt. Did not

even realize that I was going out the right side door.



There was very little wind at the time. I remember looking at the wind sock

on the way by at the end of the runway, it was about half extended. I was

into the wind, maybe gusting upward 5 to 10 MPH at the most, and I was

almost head on into it. It all happened so quickly that all I can do is

speculate now as to the reason. A couple of thoughts, after the fact. The

flair seemed to be OK and I remember doing a quick glance at the left wheel,

which I usually did, and saw that I was probably about 3 feet above the

turf. My speed was holding about 40 with 1/2 flaps on the approach so I am

guessing my touchdown was at about that speed. There was what seemed to be

a normal touchdown and then the apparent bounce and nose over occurred. Did

I pull back on the stick after the touchdown? Did I fly into a small down

draft? Was there a wind gust that pushed the nose higher? Was it just a

bad landing due to some kind of pilot error? As I was landing into the

wind, maybe I should have added about 10 MPH to compensate for the light

gusting head wind! I guess I will never know exactly what caused it, but it

happened, and I am very thankful that I was able to walk away from the crash

without as much as a bruise, except for a very, very, bruised ego.



Now for the condition of the airframe. I cannot say enough about the

integrity of the CH701. One would think that this kind of an accident would

completely crumble the airframe. I spent yesterday taking the airplane

apart and bringing it home. To my surprise there is very little damage,

compared to what I thought I would find. One wing tip and slat tip is badly

crumpled, the fiberglass wind tip shattered. Must have hit that wing tip on

the way over before settling down on it's back. There is about an inch deep

crumple at the very tip of the rudder, where it impacted the ground. The

rudder mounts were undamaged, as were the stabilizer and elevator. Both

wing root covers are very badly crumpled, but the damage seems to stop at

the outboard attachment point of the wing root covers at the rib. The top

of the wings look as good as when they were first attached, except for the

one wing tip that is shattered. The bottom of the wings are both showing

some sheet metal buckling in a few places.   At the front strut

attachment points, the attachment bracket that is connected to the spar is

bent

into the shape of an "S", but not the rear attachment points. All in all,

there 

is very little wing damage as compared to my expectations. The

fuselage is in perfect condition. Everything straight and no visible

crumpling of sheet metal anywhere. The top mounted VHF antenna was into the

dirt about 6 inches, but completely unbent. Where you find the most damage

is at the front wheel area. The axel is badly bent, and the fork is

completely bent and twisted. From the grease mark it looks like the bungee

stretched about 4 inches. There is a very slight "bubble" in the firewall,

near the front wheel strut attachment point. And oh yes, the very front

attachment point, where the wheel strut goes into the fuselage is bent up

about 1/2 and inch. That is the only damage I can see to the fuselage, very

minor. Needless to say, there is not much left of the prop, just a couple

of splintered stubs. I did check the run out of the Jabiru 2200 crank where

it exits the engine. I set the indicator at 1/10,000 and rotated the crank.

Absolutely true! I am impressed with the way that little engine is built.

Of course the engine was probably at idle when the strike occurred, and the

tips of the prop took the brunt of the force as the engine quit.



Pictures are posted on the chat site at:  www.mykitairplane.com/chat



What about the future? First and foremost I have decided, after living my

long time dream to build and fly my own airplane, that although flying is

fun and enjoyable it is not going to be in my future. I have had two small

incidents now and just am not willing to take the chance on a number three.

I am going to sell the airplane. I am sure it will make someone else a

great starter project without having to invest a great deal of money, as

compared to buying all new and building it, to get it repaired and in the

air. It was meticulously built with attention paid to every detail, as many

of you have seem from my pictures on the web site.



I will stay in touch through the Zenith Lists, and where I can, offer advise

based on my experience building the Zenith CH701.



Thanks for the concern and kind words from the many of you that I have heard

from already. 



Fly safely and with care,

George

Do Not Archive

_________________
Check out my CH-701 project at:
http://www.mykitairplane.com

Gig Giacona

Joined: 10 Jan 2006
Posts: 1416
Location: El Dorado Arkansas USA

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:45 pm Post subject: Re: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

George, glad you are OK.



Is there any chance you hit something that popped the nose up?



I did once see a guy hit a turtle on a grass field and you would have sworn he pulled the nose up.

_________________
W.R. "Gig" Giacona
601XL Under Construction
See my progress at www.peoamerica.net/N601WR

psm(at)att.net
Guest

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 1:02 pm Post subject: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

Hi George,



Thank you for the detailed post about your experience.  I'm glad you 

came through your accident with little physical damage.  Alas, it 

seems you suffered a great psychological injury which warrants 

professional attention.



It makes me sad that you have decided to give up flying because of 

your accident.  I hope you reconsider that decision after you have 

had some time to recover from the immediate impacts of your 

experience.  I hope the remaining comments I make will help you 

change your mind.



Let me say that I have given up flying, temporarily, several times 

over the years.  In each case quitting resulted from some kind of bad 

flying experience.  Some times it was weather related.  Some times it 

was experience with instructors.  Some times it was just loss of 

personal interest.  Each time I quit I didn't fly for many 

years.  Still, flying is an obsession with me and I am doing it again.



Let me make a couple of very pointed comments that will probably get 

me flamed for some time.  I hope those readers who are very sensitive 

to negative thoughts will stop reading at this point.



First, I think you got trapped into believing that the slow speeds 

achieved by the 701 meant it was easy to fly.  I suppose that is true 

to some point, but the 701 is a very specialized design meant for 

doing very specialized and difficult flying.  It is very "High 

Performance" in the low speed domain.  Like all high performance 

flying, I think it calls for superb skills and experience on the 

pilot's part to reach the ultimate results.  I don't think 100 hours 

suggests this level of pilot skill has been reached.  My point here 

is to say you have been doing very difficult and dangerous flying 

while believing it was easy and well within your training and experience.



Second, I want to make a point that is not really directed at you 

personally.  It is that builders of kit planes need a great deal of 

skill to complete their projects.  Unfortunately, this skill is 

completely unrelated to pilot skills.  We all are vulnerable to 

believing the fallacy that since we have been able to complete our 

building projects that qualifies us to fly our planes.  Fortunately 

for Zenith builders, our planes are relatively easy to fly so we 

don't fall victim to this problem very often.  It would be a lot 

worse if we were building BD-5s or Pitts specials.  The bottom line 

here is we should start over from scratch when evaluating our pilot 

skills and weighing them against the missions we choose to fly.  If 

we don't think someone who rents airplanes would allow us to perform 

the mission then we should be very reluctant to authorize ourselves 

to fly the same mission.



My last comment for you, George, is I hope you change your position 

from giving up flying to changing your flying style to one that is 

more normal and easy to achieve.  By this I mean renting Cessna's or 

other well proven commercial airplanes and flying from long wide 

paved runways.  As your skills improve you can reduce the length and 

width of paved runway you use and eventually consider using long wide 

turf runways.  Only after years of experience with this more normal 

flying should you consider the very difficult mission of flying into 

short turf airfields.



Good luck,



Paul

XL getting close





At 01:01 PM 10/6/2008, you wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  Hello to all:

First, I am OK, a bit stiff and achy here and there but no cuts or broken

bones.



Let me first say that I am a 100 hour pilot. My training was done in a LSA

with emphasis on short and soft field landings and takeoffs. You see my

instructor knew what I was going to be flying, and was a 200 hour or better

701 pilot. He really prepared me for my first flight and gave me the

confidence that I would not have any problem flying it based on my flying

skills.

Joe Kidd

Joined: 01 Aug 2008
Posts: 15
Location: TN

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:03 pm Post subject: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

George, 

       I don¢t know you and may in fact never meet you but I do know you¢ve experienced a traumatic incident which at this point is overshadowing all else in your life. I suggest you do the following, take the time to rebuild your airplane, going over it in the greatest detail. While you are doing this go and watch other¢s flying their airplanes and pick a really nice day to go up with a fried for some dual time. Then when you have completed the rebuild on your airplane set it aside for a while before making any decisions on selling it or flying it. In doing this you make a controlled and managed decision on your future course of action. For what it¢s worth at this point I¢m not convinced that you did anything wrong. Sometimes fate just rears up and takes a slap at us in order to scare or humble us. Take  care. 

Best, 

Joe



 

 ---

tigerrick(at)mindspring.c
Guest

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 2:11 pm Post subject: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

George! Very happy to hear that your landing resulted in no serious, permanent injury to the crew! Well, there is the ego to consider. Mine is still bruised from a groundloop in a Wilga over 10 years ago. Up until that point, I could claim over 20 years of flying without making any airplane unflyable. That all changed in a heartbeat, and I've spent countless hour trying to figure out exactly why it happened. Guess what? The jury's still out, and the only way to know for sure would be to borrow Mr. Peabody's Way Back machine. Which probably won't happen in my lifetime.



Your tale reminds me of flying a '68 Cardinal way back when, which had a very effective stabilator. More than once, if I landed just a tad too slow to keep the nose up on roll out, the nosewheel would bang down, and the airplane would lift off again in ground effect. With the nose now pointed slightly down, I'd hastily apply too much back elevator to raise the nose and stall the wing, and the whole sequence would repeat itself. I finally learned to carry a tiny bit of power through the flare, making the arrival a whole lot more predictable (and saving the firewall from wrinkles). This "bump and soar" routine was common to that model year Cardinal, and no doubt responsible for a bunch of sheet metal repairs.



When I first flew the 601 in 2007, my Cardinal experiences came right back to me. The really cool thing about the Zenith airplanes is that they can fly real slow. The not so cool thing is that they can fly real slow, and at speeds that seem absurd to someone transitioning from a certified airplane. So when your brain says "no way we can fly THIS slow" the airplane is saying "oh, yeah? watch this!" And frankly, your first instinct is NOT to add power to arrest the second touchdown, it's to yank back to keep that nose from plowing a new furrow. Which, of course, it does.



Parallel parking doesn't come naturally to people, either. It's something that takes some trial and error, and a good measure of experience. I've never landed a 701, but after looking at all of that wing area and those nifty leading edge slats, I'll bet that it really likes to fly at even slower speeds than the 601. Toss in a gust or two and a short field situation, and it's not so mysterious at all as to what happened to you a few days ago.



Yep, you pranged your airplane that you spent so much time building. But it can be fixed. I really hope you take a deep breath (or two) and let your adrenaline get back down to normal before deciding to give up flying. We really need people like you building, flying, accruing flight time, and honing their skills.



And thanks for providing a first hand learning experience for the rest of us. Many wouldn't have the courage to make that post (with pictures even!).



Best,



Rick Lindstrom

N42KP / Corvair



--

PatrickW

Joined: 27 Oct 2006
Posts: 380
Location: Fort Worth, Texas

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:29 pm Post subject: Re: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

Thanks for posting your experience, George.  Take heart in that other people here will learn from you.



Looking forward to reading about your thoughts and ideas in the coming days.  No matter what you decide to do, remember you have many friends here.



Glad you're OK.  



- Pat

dwilde(at)clearwire.net
Guest

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 3:31 pm Post subject: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

George's story reminds me of the experience I had a couple of months ago 

in my 701.  I came in with flaps 15 at idle and about 45 mph (est) and 

went to flair but with little effect.  I was lucky and landed flat with 

all three wheels hitting at the same time so the bounce up was level.  

Something similar may have happened to George but with the nose dropping 

through to hit first.



Based on information on this list, I bought the VG's for the elevator 

and this seemed to cure the problem.  I now can land at the same speed 

and have flair authority even with the engine at idle. 



Dan Wilde  

N948DW

ggower_99(at)yahoo.com
Guest

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:50 pm Post subject: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

Hello George,

  

 We all are very glad you came out in good shape,  I realy hope you continue flying.  

  

 A great friend and local pilot/homebuilder and Instructor  told me this, the first time I broke my ultralight in a deadstick landing (fuel problem):  

 Aviation is not a hobby, is a disease..    Chronic Disease.

  

 The next Saturday he invite me to do some touch and goes in his ultralight trainer, until I was able to grease one, He was patient but firm,  in my 5th landing I was feeling great and greased it,  he smiled and said, "now we can park the plane anytime".  I Will never forget that day.

  

 Welcome to the IHLS Club,  we are members several good friends in this list also. 

  

 Saludos

 Gary Gower

 Flying from Chapala. Mexico

 Founder President and Member of the "International Hard Landing Survivers Club" 

 Membership RESTRICTED, the less members the better, Please land safe...      

Do not archive.

 

--- On Mon, 10/6/08, Paul Mulwitz <psm(at)att.net> wrote:



  	  Quote: 	
		  From: Paul Mulwitz <psm(at)att.net>

Subject: Re: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

To: zenith-list(at)matronics.com

Date: Monday, October 6, 2008, 5:01 PM



 	  Quote: 	
		  --> Zenith-List message posted by: Paul Mulwitz <psm(at)att.net>



Hi George,



Thank you for the detailed post about your experience.  I'm glad you 

came through your accident with little physical damage.  Alas, it 

seems you suffered a great psychological injury which warrants 

professional attention.



It makes me sad that you have decided to give up flying because of 

your accident.  I hope you reconsider that decision after you have 

had some time to recover from the immediate impacts of your 

experience.  I hope the remaining comments I make will help you 

change your mind.



Let me say that I have given up flying, temporarily, several times 

over the years.  In each case quitting resulted from some kind of bad 

flying experience.  Some times it was weather related.  Some times it 

was experience with instructors.  Some times it was just loss of 

personal interest.  Each time I quit I didn't fly for many 

years.  Still, flying is an obsession with me and I am doing it again.



Let me make a couple of very pointed comments that will probably get 

me flamed for some time.  I hope those readers who are very sensitive 

to negative thoughts will stop reading at this point.



First, I think you got trapped into believing that the slow speeds 

achieved by the 701 meant it was easy to fly.  I suppose that is true 

to some point, but the 701 is a very specialized design meant for 

doing very specialized and difficult flying.  It is very "High 

Performance" in the low speed domain.  Like all high performance 

flying, I think it calls for superb skills and experience on the 

pilot's part to reach the ultimate results.  I don't think 100 hours 

suggests this level of pilot skill has been reached.  My point here 

is to say you have been doing very difficult and dangerous flying 

while believing it was easy and well within your training and experience.



Second, I want to make a point that is not really directed at you 

personally.  It is that builders of kit planes need a great deal of 

skill to complete their projects.  Unfortunately, this skill is 

completely unrelated to pilot skills.  We all are vulnerable to 

believing the fallacy that since we have been able to complete our 

building projects that qualifies us to fly our planes.  Fortunately 

for Zenith builders, our planes are relatively easy to fly so we 

don't fall victim to this problem very often.  It would be a lot 

worse if we were building BD-5s or Pitts specials.  The bottom line 

here is we should start over from scratch when evaluating our pilot 

skills and weighing them against the missions we choose to fly.  If 

we don't think someone who rents airplanes would allow us to perform 

the mission then we should be very reluctant to authorize ourselves 

to fly the same mission.



My last comment for you, George, is I hope you change your position 

from giving up flying to changing your flying style to one that is 

more normal and easy to achieve.  By this I mean renting Cessna's or 

other well proven commercial airplanes and flying from long wide 

paved runways.  As your skills improve you can reduce the length and 

width of paved runway you use and eventually consider using long wide 

turf runways.  Only after years of experience with this more normal 

flying should you consider the very difficult mission of flying into 

short turf airfields.



Good luck,



Paul

XL getting close





At 01:01 PM 10/6/2008, you wrote:

 	  Quote: 	
		  Hello to all:

First, I am OK, a bit stiff and achy here and there but no cuts or broken

bones.



Let me first say that I am a 100 hour pilot. My training was done in a LSA

with emphasis on short and soft field landings and takeoffs. You see my

instructor knew what I was going to be flying, and was a 200 hour or better

701 pilot. He really prepared me for my first flight and gave me the

confidence that I would not have any problem flying it based on my flying

skills.


	




	
	


           [quote][b]

JohnDRead(at)aol.com
Guest

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 6:46 pm Post subject: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

Hi George;

                 Glad  to hear you are OK after your incident. Sorry to hear though that you are giving  up your dream. do not archive.

  

 John  Read



Phone: 303-648-3261

Fax: 303-648-3262

Cell: 719-494-4567   

  In a message dated 10/6/2008 2:09:20 P.M. Mountain Daylight Time,  mykitairplane(at)mrrace.com writes:

  	  Quote: 	
		  -->    Zenith-List message posted by: "George Race"    <mykitairplane(at)mrrace.com>



Hello to all:

First, I am OK, a bit    stiff and achy here and there but no cuts or broken

bones. 



Let me    first say that I am a 100 hour pilot. My training was done in a LSA

with    emphasis on short and soft field landings and takeoffs. You see    my

instructor knew what I was going to be flying, and was a 200 hour or    better

701 pilot. He really prepared me for my first flight and gave me    the

confidence that I would not have any problem flying it based on my    flying

skills.



As far as what happened, it all happened so fast it    is really hard to recall

how it started to go wrong. I had been to a grass    strip fly in earlier in

the day. Left there and went about 25 miles to    another grass strip to see

how a friend was doing on his 701 build. Came    back to my home area and

decided to do a few short/soft field landings on a    1700 foot grass strip

about a mile from my home strip. (home strip is 550    feet grass) I did at

least 8 steep approach short field landings, all very    comfortable and was

going to head for home. I though one more would be fun,    as I was enjoying

the touch and go on the "long" grass    strip.



Everything looked good and then at the last second the airplane    seemed to

balloon up and nose over. I heard the crunch of the front gear    assembly,

saw the prop break into pieces and the engine quit. Was sliding    down the

grass nose low and then all of a sudden, it seemed like it was in    slow

motion, the airplane turned over on it's back. There I was hanging    from the

seat belt upside down. I actually remembered to turn off the fuel    valve and

the master switches, then opened the door and released my belt.    Did not

even realize that I was going out the right side door.



There    was very little wind at the time. I remember looking at the wind sock

on    the way by at the end of the runway, it was about half extended. I was

into    the wind, maybe gusting upward 5 to 10 MPH at the most, and I was

almost    head on into it. It all happened so quickly that all I can do is

speculate    now as to the reason. A couple of thoughts, after the fact. The

flair    seemed to be OK and I remember doing a quick glance at the left    wheel,

which I usually did, and saw that I was probably about 3 feet above    the

turf. My speed was holding about 40 with 1/2 flaps on the approach so I    am

guessing my touchdown was at about that speed. There was what seemed to    be

a normal touchdown and then the apparent bounce and nose over occurred.    Did

I pull back on the stick after the touchdown? Did I fly into a small    down

draft? Was there a wind gust that pushed the nose higher? Was it just    a

bad landing due to some kind of pilot error? As I was landing into    the

wind, maybe I should have added about 10 MPH to compensate for the    light

gusting head wind! I guess I will never know exactly what caused it,    but it

happened, and I am very thankful that I was able to walk away from    the crash

without as much as a bruise, except for a very, very, bruised    ego.



Now for the condition of the airframe. I cannot say enough about    the

integrity of the CH701. One would think that this kind of an accident    would

completely crumble the airframe. I spent yesterday taking the    airplane

apart and bringing it home. To my surprise there is very little    damage,

compared to what I thought I would find. One wing tip and slat tip    is badly

crumpled, the fiberglass wind tip shattered. Must have hit that    wing tip on

the way over before settling down on it's back. There is about    an inch deep

crumple at the very tip of the rudder, where it impacted the    ground. The

rudder mounts were undamaged, as were the stabilizer and    elevator. Both

wing root covers are very badly crumpled, but the damage    seems to stop at

the outboard attachment point of the wing root covers at    the rib. The top

of the wings look as good as when they were first    attached, except for the

one wing tip that is shattered. The bottom of the    wings are both showing

some sheet metal buckling in a few    places.   At the front strut

attachment points, the attachment    bracket that is connected to the spar is

bent

into the shape of an "S",    but not the rear attachment points. All in all,

there 

is very little    wing damage as compared to my expectations. The

fuselage is in perfect    condition. Everything straight and no visible

crumpling of sheet metal    anywhere. The top mounted VHF antenna was into the

dirt about 6 inches, but    completely unbent. Where you find the most damage

is at the front wheel    area. The axel is badly bent, and the fork is

completely bent and twisted.    From the grease mark it looks like the bungee

stretched about 4 inches.    There is a very slight "bubble" in the firewall,

near the front wheel strut    attachment point. And oh yes, the very front

attachment point, where the    wheel strut goes into the fuselage is bent up

about 1/2 and inch. That is    the only damage I can see to the fuselage, very

minor. Needless to say,    there is not much left of the prop, just a couple

of splintered stubs. I    did check the run out of the Jabiru 2200 crank where

it exits the engine. I    set the indicator at 1/10,000 and rotated the crank.

Absolutely true! I am    impressed with the way that little engine is built.

Of course the engine    was probably at idle when the strike occurred, and the

tips of the prop    took the brunt of the force as the engine quit.



Pictures are posted on    the chat site at:  www.mykitairplane.com/chat



What about the    future? First and foremost I have decided, after living my

long time dream    to build and fly my own airplane, that although flying is

fun and enjoyable    it is not going to be in my future. I have had two small

incidents now and    just am not willing to take the chance on a number three.

I am going to    sell the airplane. I am sure it will make someone else a

great starter    project without having to invest a great deal of money, as

compared to    buying all new and building it, to get it repaired and in the

air. It was    meticulously built with attention paid to every detail, as many

of you have    seem from my pictures on the web site.



I will stay in touch through the    Zenith Lists, and where I can, offer advise

based on my experience building    the Zenith CH701.



Thanks for the concern and kind words from the many    of you that I have heard

from already. 



Fly safely and with    care,

George

Do Not  he  es  y       -->                 - MATRONICS WEB FORUMS  nbsp;               - List Contribution Web Site  ;                             =========================



	






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tonyplane(at)bellsouth.ne
Guest

Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:56 pm Post subject: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

Rick Lindstrom" <tigerrick(at)mindspring.com>  WROTE:

"When I first flew the 601 in 2007, my Cardinal experiences came right back 

to me. The really cool thing about the Zenith airplanes is that they can fly 

real slow. The not so cool thing is that they can fly real slow, and at 

speeds that seem absurd to someone transitioning from a certified airplane. 

So when your brain says "no way we can fly THIS slow" the airplane is saying 

"oh, yeah? watch this!" And frankly, your first instinct is NOT to add power 

to arrest the second touchdown, it's to yank back to keep that nose from 

plowing a new furrow. Which, of course, it does."

Rick, I agree!



George,



I also second Rick's statement: "Very happy to hear that your landing 

resulted in no serious, permanent injury to the crew! Well, there is the ego 

to consider."   Also, I hope you do not quit flying.



For all, FWIW,



In My POH I have the following statement for my XL



   CAUTION



 WATCH SINK RATE AND AIR SPEED:  with the landing gear geometry of 493TG, a 

High sink rate at touch down will result in the nose gear causing bouncing 

the airplane airborne in a nose high attitude.  IF THIS HAPPENS â€“ GO AROUND 

or initiate a BOUNCE RECOVERY!  A NOSE WHEEL LANDING or Pilot Induced 

Oscillation (PIO) can result under this condition if landing is attempted.



also, relative to SLOW speed takeoffs, from my POH:



C.   SOFT FIELD TAKEOFF



-    The objective of a soft field takeoff is to transfer as much weight as 

possible to the wings as quickly as possible to minimize wheel friction with 

the ground.



-    1/2 flaps max or ZERO flaps, to minimize weight of nose gear to ground, 

is recommended for soft field takeoffs.  Keep the airplane moving over soft 

ground to keep from sinking in.



-   Maintain full aft stick* during takeoff run until nose comes up to the 

takeoff attitude.  This minimizes/eliminates nose wheel contact with the 

ground.



-   Maintain a slightly high attitude until the aircraft is airborne, and 

then lower the nose to   accelerate in ground effect to flying airspeed.



-        Accelerate to climb speed, raise nose to climb-out attitude and 

retract flaps above 65 kts.



                                                             *CAUTION



Flight testing has shown that, due to the main gear placement on N493TG, 

once the nose starts to rotate it can rotate rapidly to an extreme nose high 

attitude with the engine â€œpullingâ€ the aircraft airborne.  When this 

happens, control authority is marginal due to the low airspeed involved. 

Once the nose starts to rotate, be prepared to reduce aft stick input 

rapidly.



Tony Graziano



601XL/Jab3300; N493TG; 428 hrs



==

eightyknots

Joined: 22 Aug 2008
Posts: 5
Location: New Zealand

Posted: Thu Oct 16, 2008 11:28 pm Post subject: Re: A Difficult Landing and After Thoughts

Hi George,



I'm thankful to God that you not only survived this incident but survived pretty well intact ...from the sound of it.



There is a New Zealand guy in the north who has written a useful article about the CH-701. It is at http://www.acomodata.com/zenair701/index.htm . He is a retired Boeing captain from Air New Zealand. Among other things he writes: "



The lack of inertia is most likely to catch you out in landings. Whereas in your Cessna you can chop the power at 50â€™ or so and continue on to land in fine style, in the 701 the speed will bleed amazingly quickly. This is particularly pronounced when approaching with full flap, (30 deg.)  Early power reduction and speed decay can result in loss of elevator authority. Until you have got it taped I recommend keeping power on until the mainwheels touch." 



And also "Operating a short strip with the throttle closed and speed bleeding near the ground I have a little rule. If I lose elevator control above 10 feet above the ground I correct it with addition of  appropriate power. If the elevator control loss occurs below 10 feet above the ground I just accept it, the nose drops, all 3 wheels hit simultaneously but not too hard. I run the tundra tyres quite flat, (8 psi) to give more cushioning."



This may help a little in explaining things.



I'm at the beginning end (contemplating which STOL plane to construct) with the 701 high on the list. Therefore, I was very interested in your experience as well as your comments about the structural integrity of the 701. I wonder how well other planes (e.g. the Valor or Savannah) would have survived a similar impact?



I hope you'll re-think your self-imposed flying ban. Don't they say that when you fall off a horse the best thing to do is to get straight back on?



Best wishes,



Hank

_________________
Hank

I am looking for a STOL high-wing plane to build, starting some time during 2009. Will it be an ICP Savannah, a Zenith CH-701, an Aeroprakt Foxbat/A22/Valor, or X-Air H?

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